Who’s carving her initials on his arm
Despite his squeaking-hinge attempts to beg
Or plead. Den, trampled on by dead men’s feet,
Hears the round minstrel’s stern, stentorian shout
As Den’s stamped down into the splintery mire,
Resurfacing to hear the bard enquire
If Freddy Allen’s anywhere about,
Told in reply that he’s just down the street,
At which the children leave. The cackling throng
Redouble now their bestial, boisterous ways.
They kick Den harder as the band begin,
They gouge the shrieking Kenny’s puppet skin
And as the joyous, tumbling music plays
These slurring shades raise up their glaze-eyed song:
“Named for this inn, the jolly smokers we,
Up here near fifty year now, man and boy!
Pale in our great beyond, beyond the pale,
So drink up, down the hatch, hail, horrors, hail!
Leave us dead men and empties to enjoy
Our pie-eyed paralysed posterity!”
And plunged in quicksand pine Den twists like some
Half-landed fish pinched in between two planes,
Target for every last ethereal thug.
Forgotten, now, the taking of the drug.
Not even memory of his name remains
Nor life prior to this warped delirium
Of boots and threats. Nearby, Fat Kenny’s squeal
Competes now with the music’s weave and wail
As the two writhe in what appears to be
A pissed-up paradise or purgatory